Principal Hardware & IC Functional Safety Architect

Job Title

Principal Hardware & IC Functional Safety Architect

Role Summary

Define and drive hardware functional safety architecture for analog, mixed-signal, and power semiconductor products in the Power & Energy domain. Ensure hardware architectures, safety mechanisms, and analyses meet targeted ASIL/SIL requirements per ISO 26262 and IEC 61508.

Work across product, system, and design teams to translate system-level safety needs into IC-level safety concepts that balance safety integrity, performance, complexity, silicon impact, and cost.

Experience Level

Senior - Principal-level technical architect role. Relevant senior experience in semiconductor hardware architecture and functional safety is expected.

Responsibilities

Accountable for hardware-level functional safety architecture and safety analysis across safety-related IC developments.

• Define and drive hardware functional safety concepts and architectures for safety-related ICs.
• Translate system/application safety requirements into IC-level safety requirements, mechanisms, and architectural concepts to achieve ASIL/SIL targets.
• Ensure consistency between safety requirements, architecture, mechanisms, analyses, and assumptions of use.
• Identify opportunities for optimized, compact safety architectures that avoid unnecessary complexity.
• Prepare and integrate Safety Manual documentation for IC usage in safety-related applications.
• Perform hardware safety analyses (FMEA, FMEDA, FTA, DFA) and evaluate failure modes, diagnostic coverage, dependent failures, and residual risks.
• Demonstrate and track quantitative hardware-architecture metrics and feed analysis results back into architecture and design decisions.
• Provide functional safety expertise across power management, data-center power, industrial automation, robotics, and related applications.
• Collaborate closely with product, system architects, hardware/IC design, verification/validation, safety managers, assessors, customers, and ecosystem partners.

Requirements

Must-have technical skills and experience.

• Strong experience in semiconductor hardware architecture, IC design, and product development.
• In-depth, practical knowledge of ISO 26262 and/or IEC 61508 and their application to hardware architectures.
• Practical experience applying hardware safety-analysis techniques such as FMEDA, FMEA, FTA, and DFA.
• Understanding of requirements-driven semiconductor development and mapping system-level safety requirements to IC solutions.
• Proven technical leadership, architectural thinking, and ability to challenge complex designs constructively.
• Effective verbal and written communication across engineering teams, management, customers, and safety assessors.
• Pragmatic approach to balancing safety integrity with performance, complexity, silicon impact, and cost.

Education Requirements

Master's degree or equivalent experience in Electrical Engineering, Electronics, Semiconductor Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related technical discipline. The posting explicitly allows equivalent practical experience. Knowledge of ISO 26262 and/or IEC 61508 is expected.

About the Company

Company: NXP Semiconductors

Headquarters: Nijmegen, Netherlands

NXP Semiconductors N.V. is a global semiconductor company that provides High Performance Mixed Signal and Standard Product solutions. With over 45,000 employees and operations in more than 35 countries, NXP is a leader in secure connectivity solutions for embedded applications, catering to automotive, industrial IoT, mobile, and communication infrastructure markets. The company is committed to innovation and sustainability, advancing a smarter, safer, and more sustainable world through technology.